A Study On Forms Of Forestry Farmer Cooperative Organizations Under Collective Forests Tenure Reform

Nowadays, rural social and economy in China is on the wave of globalization and urbanization. Foreign forestry companies with advanced technology and abundant capital has been come into China, formating competitivity to rural traditional forest management and production. There are many farmers who work in agricultre and nonagriculture or work in city overtime because of urbanization, formating rural population gradually decreased and the labor force with polarization of the age left behind. Because of low comparative advantage of agricultural, the opportunity cost of investment in agriculture can be very high. The labor with knowledge and skill and capital elements has been very scarce resulted frome the continued outflow of excellent human capital and forestry production capital.With the overall development of collective forest tenure reform, family has become the mainforce of collective forest management, establishing cooperative property rights foundation for forestry farmer. In parctice, the cooperative behavior of forestry farmers diversified, some different cooperative organizations has been formed. So in the changesof rural socio-economic context, why do cooperative behaviors of farmers diversified? And how do they make rational choices? What are the development statuses of different forms of Forestry Farmers Cooperative Organiztions (FFCOs) formed by the diversified behaviors of farmers? At the same time, under the two main reforms of full market economy and democratic process, where will the development of FFCOs going?Based on the above background and problems, some new institutional economics theories of transaction costs, property rights, stakeholders and corporate governance were use and some analysis tools of principal-agent models and game models were applied, and constructing different benefit distribution model for diversified FFCOs. The study focesed on different cooperative behavior of forestry farmers and their choice, combined with short-term and long-term perspective, analytical framework of the internal operating mechanism, external stakeholders and development were applied to evaluate three forms of FFCOs——forestry cooperatives, forestry professional association and family shareholding cooperative forest farm, from which the development orientation of FFCOs were proposed. Conclusions are followed:Firstly, in the current environment of forest products trading, the diversity of farmers cooperative behavior is the result from transaction costs rationally choosed by forestry farmers. Study suggests that curruent forestry management and production have three obvious features of high asset specificity, large transaction uncertainty and the low trading frequency. With their combined effects, market transaction costs of forestry farmer can be high. So farmers can reduce transation cost of forest products by choosing different forms of cooperative moldes on their own natural resources, and then different forms of FFCOs were formed.Secondly, the current asymmetric internal operation mechanism for managers of forestry cooperatives complies with the scarcity of capital and rural labor with managerial skills. And the developments of forestry cooperatives are supported by different types and levels of external stakeholders and good policy environment. But the study found under the lower level of current forest management in rural, forestry cooperatives are difficult to adapt to timber forest products production with low frequency of transactions, and the implementation of existing policies is more important than the policy itself. With the long term, the organizational goal of social equity is difficult to take into account and ensure the interests of other farmers.Thirdly, there are some advantages of professional services and good adaptability in foreatry professional association. But study pointed out the lack of internal supervision mechanism likely to influence the stability of the organization. The external stakeholders involved in few group with simple contractual relationship, but the non-profit nature of the association implying there is no self-profit capacity, leading it heavily dependent on external stakeholders, formatting development difficulties of forestry professional associations. Together with its function of a single, narrow scope of business, it is difficult to respond to future changes from environment and difficult to protect the interests of forestry farmers.Fourthly, family shareholding cooperative forest farm is a form of cooperative for forestry farmers with shares of economic efficiency and social equity becaruse of its members mechanism without completely open. There are some advantages of simple and low cost of control, unobvios asymmetric decision-making, agency problems and shareholder alienation, also simple benefit distribution mechanisms. So family shareholding cooperative forest farm is adapt to small-scale cooperation for some families with good relationshiop, timber forest products with low frequency of transactions. But its development is facing a "policy vacuum"challenge. And because of its special member's mechanism, it is difficult to expand the scale with the voluntary, so the social-economic influence is weak; it may be detrimental to respond to future changes frome external environment and Maintenance of the interests of the majority of forestry farmers.Fivethly, In the long run, research suggests that four positions for development of FFCOs of promotting sustainable forest management, providing integrated services, improving forestry farmers'income and protecting interest. The development orientation of FFCOs should take diverstity and three stages of promoting and regulating cooperation, strengthening the economic strength and expansion of social affected. And then research gives the preliminary view that based on curruent forms of FFCOs, forestry farmer cooperative association with integreted property, which main functions is pretect forests farmers rights integreted with funcion of economic, education and social, may be the better choice for the future of working closely in forestry farmer interest group, improving governance in rural communities, as well as responding to full market economy status.Lastly, Studies suggest that at the present stage and long-term of development of FFCOs can be focus on five major aspects of based development policies financing, forest insurance, industry support and organizational guarantee. Based on development policy, the regulation of in internal operating mechanism, reduction of transaction costs of forest products and improving the rural forestry production factors maket are the main task, in the long term, sense of democratic participation of forestry farmer also need to be cultivated, long-term mechanism to participat in forest policy processes need to be builded to protect forestry farmers interests from the fundamental and to fully play the function of FFCOs.